Should women be in combat?

In a bow to the reality that the front line has in many instances gone the way of trench warfare, the Defense Department is expanding the roles women can perform in the military. The decision opens more than 14,000 positions to women.

The policy is yet another step in what the Pew Research Center says has been a steady increase in the exposure of women service members to combat situations since the 1990s. Women who have long lamented the gender-based limitations placed on their service — and their opportunities for advancement — welcome the move.

The news, however, has generated plenty of criticism on the right. Here’s a piece by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association that asserts both religious and practical reasons for keeping women out of combat, from women’s lack of stamina to the “God-given instinct” men have to protect women, interfering with their ability to fight, to the atrocities he contends women would face at the hands of Islamist enemies. He blames President Barack Obama for imposing “secular and pagan values on our military.”

Fischer in the piece defends presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who has also spoken against women in combat, saying emotions could get in the way. Santorum has said he was referring to the emotions of men, not women. Rival Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, said Santorum misunderstands military service; anyone in uniform, he said, has to consider themselves to be at war.

Liz Trotta, a Fox News commentator, caused a stir in pointing out that there has been a 64 percent increase in violent sexual assaults on women in the military since 2006 and questioning, “What did they expect? These people are in close contact.” She faulted an “extreme feminist agenda” that brought women closer to combat, and said it has also resulted in higher costs for things like victims advocates and counselors. “I thought the mission of the Army and the Navy and the four services was to defend us and not the people who were fighting the war,” she says. Her full remarks are below:

What do you think? After the only limits left on women in combat artificial? Should they be eliminated? Or have we already gone too far, as staunch conservatives suggest?

8 Responses

As a former Marine I can say the women I knew in the Marine Corps could handle combat. On the other hand we can not afford to allow combat forces to become victims of Political Correctness or Equal Rights issues. There is no room for compromise in combat the only option is victory, victory means people live. Social experiments have no place in a combat unit. Women can serve, they need to know what they are getting into, what will happen or could happen. They could be captured and i will let your own imagination tell what will happen. Our enemies don’t have the standards we do. And they could die, become disabled and so on. There is no room for crying or complaining in combat units. The crying and complaining happens after the battle.

How ironic. Israel, a nation with one of the best fighting forces in the world, fully integrates women into its armed forces. In fact, every citizen, male or female, is required to serve. Just shows the childish ignorance and stupidity of the right-wing extremists who insist on dominating the political discourse, thereby making the United States of America the laughingstock of the planet.

I’m kind of torn on this one. My main thought, as a woman, is “Yippee! No comabt for me!” I find war to be ridiculous unless it is truly in defense of violent invaders. If the men in power, because let’s face it it’s mostly men, want to go to war and won’t listen to reason, then let them die for their “righteous cause”.

On the other hand, women are as able to kill as men. As the commenter above said, women in the military are tough and can handle combat. I do think though there are certain fields were women and small or muscularly weak men do not belong. There are also areas in which a woman can be more useful -particularly espionage, foreign relations, and weaponry.

Israel’s military, one of the best in the world, is trained solely by women.

It’s incredibly sexist to assume all women cry and complain all the time. There are plenty of women on the front lines of all different sorts of fields. For instance; the State Police. I have a lot of faith in the men AND women that serve and protect this country, and I support women who want to serve on the front lines.

Male on male sexual assualt in the military has increased since 2006 also. Female on female assualt rates have not risen significantly. So should we limit all combat roles to women, since they seem to be the only ones capable of handling the stress?
OK, so my response is slightly crazy, but quoting “statistics” out of context to prove a point is just wrong in so many ways.

Let anyone serve, if they can meet one (gender blind) physical criteria.

Yes, they should serve in combat roles since they have a right to do so under the equal protection clause of the U.S. constitution.

We need a smaller but more efficient armed forces according to our Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and President Obama.

With the Iran War coming we need the women to fight.

Now apply military theory of a smaller military to the individual soldier and you see the wisdom of letting women fight in close combat.

All women assault units would be good in close combat situations such as the storming of the interior of a house like the one shown in the photo on this posting.

On average most women are smaller in size then men.

They would be harder to shoot due to their smaller size, and they would be great at maneuvers in tight quarters such as storming the interior of buildings.

It makes no sense to send five 175 pound men into a building to have a shootout when you can send in five 140 pound women who would be able to maneuver must better in the tight quarters.

On a bomb patrol in Afghanistan women assault units would be great since many of the bombs require someone of smaller size to go into tight quarters and take the bombs apart.

The women of America were discriminated against in the Vietnam war. They would have been great fighters. For instance, imagine them crawling into underground tunnels to fight the North Vietnamese Army units. We sent large men into the tunnels and many were killed. The use of smaller sized women would have been much more effective.

Noticed that about 68% of the respondents to the survey agree with my view of letting the women fight.

From a completely theoretical point of view, there is absolutely no reason why women can’t be put into any role in the military men are.

However, and for me this is a big however, while 99.9% of the time there is no problem, I can think of that .1% that is a big issue.

For simplicities sake let’s say the average man in the military is 180lbs and the average woman is 130lbs.

In the middle of a combat situation, can that woman pull the man, who has 50lbs on her before loaded out in combat gear, out of harms way when he is injured without needing assistance or putting herself in a compromising position to pull him out of the way. Let’s face it, there will be times when this situation occurs. If someone is injured they may not have the luxury of time to wait for someone who doesn’t have the upper body strength to go get help to pull them out of danger.

This same situation occurs in firefighting. There is a dummy pull test that all applicants must pass. Most women who fail to pass the firefighting exam, fail at this point. It has nothing against women, its just the facts of human physiology, men simply by nature have higher upper body strength. If the military implements a similar test to pass I would be fine with them in combat.